Ethan Mollick, a professor at Wharton, aims to make research understandable and useful. Lately, many of his posts have focused on how to think about and use ChatGPT.
Created by students at the University of Sydney, this Canvas course guides students through ways to use generative AI productively and responsibly in an academic setting.
AI-Enhanced Search Tools
Considerations for Selecting a Search Tool
What is the tool's data source?
Is the tool connected to the internet or producing results based on training data?
Is it searching a subset of resources (specific publishers, free resources)?
In many cases, it's not clear what the tool is searching or what data it was trained on.
How easily can you verify the outputs?
Does the tool provide the original source for the text it generated?
Verifying AI outputs is important because tools like Chat GPT can generate statements that aren't factual and citations that aren't real.
AI generated summaries of documents or search results may misrepresent the original content.
Tools like Genesis and Perplexity can search the internet and produce AI generated summaries of a small set of results. Use this to sift through results or identify topics for deeper exploration.
Genesis and Perplexity both retrieve a variety of sources: websites, news, scholarly articles. For articles behind paywalls, check to see if provides access.
AI Tools for Revising Writing
Ways to Use AI Tools to Revise Your Writing
Checking spelling and grammar
Improving the clarity of your writing
Revising your writing style
QuillBot and Grammarly
Both have free and paid versions
Designed to check spelling and grammar
Will paraphrase text or make suggestions to improve clarity
ChatGPT and Perplexity
Both have free and paid versions.
Use persona prompts to tailor your writing style. Example prompts:
I am a management student writing a paper for a class. Revise this draft so that it has a professional style, appropriate for a workplace report.
I'm a college instructor and this is an outline of a presentation for a management class that is doing a research project. Can you rewrite it in a more friendly but still professional tone?
Use the tool as a writing tutor. Example prompts:
Offer suggestions to improve this document, which should have a professional style. Put the results in a table. The first column will be the original text, the second column should have the recommended changes, and the third column will explain the reason for the change.
Look at the organization of this text and suggest ways to improve it.
Using AI Responsibly
Abide by your instructor's or organization's policies.
Be transparent about how you used AI.
Understand that you are responsible for the content and analysis in your paper or report.
AI generated summaries of research may misrepresent the original content.
AI can generate citations for sources that do not exist.
